Gentle readers, none of us is getting any younger. It’s not exactly a sad truth—I don’t think my youth had all that much to recommend it besides higher energy levels and someone else paying the bills for the first 21 years—but it’s happening, and these days, as I enter my late 30s, I’m seeing some physical evidence I hadn’t been expecting, and facing the reality that everyone around me is getting older too. As a reader request post, I gathered together a few Harpies from our commenter community for a freewheeling kind of roundtable about the aging process and where it’s taken us, and our feminist ideals.

BeckySharper: To start us off on a totally superficial note, I am getting eyebags, y’all. It isn’t surprising—the women on one side of my family have big ol’ eyebags you could haul laundry in. Now, the women on the other side of my family have had everything nipped and tucked. I think they look kind of “off” but that said…they dont’ have eyebags.. I used to scorn the constant surgification, but now I wonder if I been blithely toeing the anti-surgery, “love your body” party line my whole life simply because it was easy for me to do so? Have I still subconciously bought into the idea that ageing makes women ugly and it is better for me to have tight skin? THE PATRIARCHY WORMED ITS WAY INTO MY BRAIN!

Rodriguez: Of course I am convinced the patriarchy has me brainwashed about what I *have* to look like. The thing about that kind of brainwashing is that it’s so hard to see from the inside. Maybe that brainwashing explains why I think I might be a little narcissistic about clothes and hair even were I a man. I’ll never have a way to know, though.

I’m 46. I’ve been coloring my hair like my life depends on it, at least since I was 30. Also, when I have money I do indulge in some cosmetic procedures. I do the dermal filler around my mouth. And I have a dark spot on my cheek I get chemically lightened. Although, last time I did either of those it was 4 years ago, so I suppose I’m not *that* obsessed with it. (or, I never feel like I have money.) So yeah, aging. I’ve been noticing.

veganmarcy: I’m 33 and I don’t fear wrinkles as much as I fear aging/tan spots and gray hair, and while I’m at it, big blotchy blue patches of varicose veins. Basically, whatever my mom has, although overall she looks very good for her age, even moreso since she went vegan. My mother went silver, then gray, than white-haired very young. My gran lived to her 80s and still didn’t have all gray/white hair. Unfortunately it seems I got my mom’s “Celtic DNA” as she calls her going grey so young, and not just her Raynaud’s. Once I got in my late 20s, let alone hit 30, bam. Thick gray hairs poking up EVERYWHERE. Seeing as I have a penchant for hair colors and styles when I’m flush, at first dye jobs just happened to get things covered up without going out of my way to do so. But now that I can’t afford a stylist and have just been too busy and distracted to give a fuck about dealing with it at home, I’m back to occasionally yoinking out the ones that stick straight up outta my scalp like aging-detecting antennae. It’s enough that I can get gray hairs while still having acne, it’s too much. That’s my achilles heel for aging gracefully – gray hairs. I alternate going “fuck caring! fuck everything! fuckityfuckfuck!” with “dammit, I’d like to feel confident enough to get laid sometime this decade.”

MischiefManager: I recently turned 58. Aging is part of my everyday reality. I’m fortunate in 2 ways here: On the very best day I ever had, I was average looking, and I’ve had a life-threatening illness. So I’m less invested in keeping my looks than women who actually have looks to keep (grin) and I am very aware that the alternative to aging is dying.

I have no interest in plastic surgery of any kind. Again, part of that is because I’m not as invested in my looks as I would naturally be if they brought me social rewards. (I really don’t mean to sound snarky here, but I want to be clear that I’m not feeling sorry for myself because I was never a beauty. Whatever nature gives you, enjoy it!). I can understand the fear of losing one’s looks, especially in a society as fixated on youth as ours is. And I am not going to condemn anyone who makes choices different from mine. Feminism includes lots of different behaviors and attitudes. Becky, wanting to feel good about your body does not make you false to feminism. We all need to support each other’s choices in our personal lives. For me, not choosing plastic surgery is the same thing as not getting an implant after my mastectomy. I would feel like a coward if I did those, because I’d feel like I was trying to pretend that something was true that isn’t.

It’s as though nature is helping us detach from our lives as we age. our skin begins to pull away from our muscles, our stories and references are more and more rooted in the past

Rodriguez: That’s what happens during aging at some really high numbers. I’ve been observing at close range for a while now, since my parents are very old and live with me. The only way I can describe it concisely is to say that they are dwindling.
BeckySharper: My parents are in their mid-60s and in good health, but I have noticed the aging process starting to get to them. DaddySharper in particular has aged a great deal in the past few years thanks to stress and family tragedy, and all the sudden has developed a slump-shouldered old-man shuffle and just doesn’t seem to engage the way he used to. Dwindling is a good word for it.

Rodriguez: I just saw an article in NY magazine I think, where the author describes his mother’s terrible health, and what he does with his sister for his mother.

He used that phrase “dwindling”. It struck me as dead – on. He also said something that is most likely pseudo science but it convinced me anyway: that if you have lived a healthy life, and you have access to doctors and money, then you are in fact more likely to dwindle

He called it “a life worth ending”. Ouch!

BeckySharper: I had that experience watching three grandparents die over the last 5 years. They were healthy and very competent…until they weren’t. They llived to be 89, 90 and 90, respectively. But the last few years for all three of them were fairly miserable, with lots of chronic pain and weakening and loss of mobility and dignity (one grandmother died after four traumatic years with Alzheimers, which is every bit as bad as you’ve heard). The thing I took away from it is that there are worse things than dying. Which I realize kind of upends what MM said about not fearing aging because it’s the alternative to dying, but there is also a point at which dying can seem like an excellent alternative to aging.

MischiefManager: This is why we all need living wills and health care powers of attorney.

Rodriguez: OMG no joke. I can’t stress that enough. If anything is worth repeating on Harpyness it’s that. Also, I got power of attorney from my folks on their bank account. They’ve consolidated down to one bank.

BeckySharper: Even though I’m still young, I recently did a living will, and both types of powers of attorney. I have seen some really bad decisions made in my family regarding the care of sick and disabled relatives and I wanted to ensure that the person I want to make healthcare decisions for me is the ONLY person who will make them.

Generally speaking, I feel like it’s a given that women get forced into the caregiving roles for our aging relatives, and being prepared and having some idea of what to expect is the only kind of empowerment we’re ever going to have.

veganmarcy: I live with my retired mom and her hoarding tendencies have been very frustrating and lead to some really terrible yelling cursing arguments which reminded me why I lived so far away for so long. But then again, it’s gotta get done, and if not me helping then who? My brother? (Yeah right, he visits for the holidays and then gets to leave.) And as I remember so well from sorting out stuff after my grandmothers’ deaths…I just keep morbidly thinking better to sort it now than if/when she’s in a home or end of life. Sigh. Life always throws curveballs and other horrendous metaphors.

What curveballs have you been noticing as you age, or when it comes to the aging of your parents and family members? Are there any moments that have surprised you? Are there ways you draw on your female experiences or your feminism to cope? Please tell us in the comments!

16 Responses to “On Aging: A Commenter Roundtable”

Watching my parents age has been part of my life experience since I was a child. My parents did not have children until their late 30s when they adopted me and then my brother, and I distinctly remember having parents about 10 years older than my classmates in elementary school. Now that my father has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, it’s been brutal not only because of the general terrible nature of Alzheimer’s but because the resources for caregivers and family members is directed towards people who are much older than I am (in my late 20s). I’ve had to deal with the guilt of not living close to my parents while I get my own life on track (finishing my Ph.D. + building a life with my husband) compounded with the frustration of not having the time or money to help when I’m needed. For anyone else who needs it, I’ve found this book to the most helpful, How to Care for Aging Parents by Virginia Morris, which came to me via my mother when she had to take care of her father. (Sigh.)

I don’t fear aging but I do fear the lack of short-term and long-term infrastructure that will severely affect quality of life: health insurance and access to quality health care, protecting my parents’ assets should my father ever have to go into a home, vacation time, and so forth. Aging is absolutely a political issue because it exists within a triangulation of diminished government resources, women’s unreasonable burden of being caretakers, and an increasingly-inflexible workplace where an employee’s family commitments (children, spouse, or parents) are liabilities.

I’m with mischiefmanager. I’ve never been invested in my appearance. When I’ve dyed my hair, it has been for effect (ie: purple or green), not to cover the ever increasing greys. I haven’t worn make-up in nearly a decade. I don’t shave anywhere (although I do pluck whiskers from my chin sometimes). I don’t do regular mosturizing. And I’m fat.

I don’t see myself changing and suddenly spending money or time on my appearance. I’ll call it “aging gracefully” but really it’s just that fussing about my appearance is so far down my priority list that I need binoculars to see it.

I’m pretty lucky in this dept. My parents are old but hale and hearty (dad is 84, mom is 72). I expect their ends to be quick descent over several years, or an abrupt end. They are pretty old to get a long lingering illness. I live far away and have enough health issues of my own to not be expected to care for them. I have 4 siblings, and one lives very close by, and the other 3 hrs away.

In terms of my own aging, I really did freak out when white hairs started sprouting on my head. I got my first around 32, and for many years plucked those few out. I vacillated about dyeing my hair or not until my husband finally just told me my hair looked great like it was, and I knew I would never have the patience to keep up with the roots. It was 3 yrs ago, at 37, I finally decided I am NOT going to go the dye route. I’ve got a sprinkling of white hairs all over, and a cool very small collection that ALMOST makes a white streak in the front area. I think it is sort of cool.

I don’t have wrinkles yet, thanks to having a lifetime of oily acne prone skin. Apparently my type of delightful skin is thicker, and with aging resists wrinkles better than thinner skin. So at 40, I don’t even have laugh lines.

My parents have aged well physically, so I’ve always assumed I will too. I think of most aging as genetically determined, not much people can do about it. I’m just lucky.

Hanna and I are both in our early thirties, and so far our physical health issues have not been tied to ageing so much as just the regular ups and downs of being imperfect human embodied selves (for example, my thyroid disorder or her depression). I have been really fortunate to grow up with plenty of role-models for life-long living, in which the physical limitations of age are acknowledged and coped with, but they don’t take over your life or turn it into one long march toward inevitable death. In the last decade or so I’ve been watching my parents do eldercare for their parents and that has been an occasion for my parents and me to talk about what it means for them to grow older, and what sort of elder years they picture for themselves. And in turn, obviously, that causes me to think about what sort of life I want for myself growing old.

I think my feminism has encouraged me starting NOW to re-imagine growing older as a process with rewards as well as losses. I absolutely don’t want to spend the rest of my life imagining that I either failed to make the most of my “youth” or that I’m now just waiting to die. My feminism has brought me into conversations about connectedness and community and the ethics of care that I hope will be very helpful in our future — as well as prompting us to be intentional now about the ways in which we build a life with our friends and family. I’ve been fortunate enough to come into contact with lesbian feminists who are now in their elder years who model alternative ways of being elderly that don’t necessarily involve being embedded in traditional families.

Overall, I’m incredibly grateful to feminist thinkers and activists for inoculating me against the ageism (towards both youth and the elderly!) in our society and encouraging me to develop alternative ways of understanding worth that aren’t predicated on the ideal of the youthful, healthy, productive worker.

1) I’ve always found gray hair, soft wrinkly skin, laugh lines, etc., incredibly beautiful and so I look forward to both my own appearance as I settle into my elderbody and my partner’s appearance as she grows into herself. Just like anyone, the mobility and pain issues (some of which we currently deal with even as younger folks) are a struggle to cope with and feel positive about — but I hope I will be able to separate out the beauty of ageing bodies from health struggles (which can happen at any age).

2) I think one of the reasons I write erotic fan fiction about elderly lesbian couples is that it’s a way of directly intervening in society’s perception of older folks as lacking in sexual desire or desirability. I also look at it as a very personal act of preparing to be sexual into my elder years, and consciously building up immunity against those cultural messages that imagine that people stop being sexual or erotic selves at 45 (or younger!)

I want to say that I am REALLY enjoying my age. I finally fit in somewhat with my age cohort. I’ve had JRA since age 10, and finally my cohort (early 40′s) is slowing down and having health issues and / or know someone who does. So FINALLY I don’t stick out like a sore thumb. One example: lots of people my age have a tougher time getting up and down off the floor. In my 20′s people looked at me like “What is her problem?”. I miss how orgasmic I was in my early 20′s though

My husband is having a harder time with the aging process. He is very athletic and having a body that is starting to have some aches and not recover as fast from injury or over-exercise is tough for him.

Don’t sell out just because you are actually starting to age! Have courage. I may have bags under my eyes but I hold an upper level leadership role in a profession that matters. I can do a hundred push ups and row my scull through rough cold water with little fear. My friends who love me come from all age and communities and for some of them I made a real impact on their lives. I’m not bragging but life is richer as you go not a sad and steady decline. Even with eye bags you could carry laundry in- life is sweet

It was really great to be a part of this roundtable, I tend to be “read-only” instead of commenting on most sites but this site is worth the interaction.

As for feminism and caretaking, I see it mostly left up to the women in my family generation after generation, despite the being generations of strong feminists in my family. So you may be in your 20s (or 30s) now, or living across the country, but what do you do if a loved one needs more help than you can give in a visit? What do you do if you have an aging relative, especially a parent, and would like to be around them more and vice versa (have them know their grandkids well, and so on)? The USA is a very large country with crap health and social care infrastructure and frankly you may be called to caretaking duty at any moment, it’s kind of like being drafted. So I would highly encourage you to keep that in mind when making financial and other commitments, or buying a place, or whatever. Basically, what you are and aren’t going to do, and how you’re going to support that decision. Because unfortunately it’s usually impossible to force others to take up their share of the work. Also, aging women are more likely, I find, to share info about needing help with their female children and grandchildren than with the male ones, so the males are inherently more left out of the loop and end up focusing more on their career or whatever instead. It’s a vicious cycle than needs to be broken, starting with how we raise our boys in this country.
/rant

On my end I bought a house (back when I had a job, sigh) to be able to move back where I’m from, and while I thought my mom might be staying there much later on, maybe temporarily while recovering from an illness or injury, I never pictured that 6 months after moving in, my mom would move in with me without a clear end date to that arrangement. In some ways it’s been to my benefit too, but it’s been quite an adjustment, and I spend every single day on major sorting and related projects for her. I’m hoping that calms down after a few months, so far not much time for my own life. And I lived across the country very independently for years, so again, you never know when your life will change, you know?

@Becky: It’s true, a prolonged old age spent in hospitals is not what any of us wants. When our son was doing his bioethics practicum, the great majority of the people he saw were elderly folks in the ER who were now on all kinds of life support despite the treatments being essentially futile. And the families were arguing about what to do if the patient wasn’t able to decide for him/herself. The guilt that results from being the one who directs the doctors to end life support must be dreadful, but keeping a terminally ill person technically “alive” isn’t a happy decision either. I myself hope I die at home in bed.

Another thing I’ve noticed about aging is that you become invisible. It’s not a pleasant feeling to be on the street and have people look right through you. I’ve taken to smiling at strangers in defense.

Do you know this song? Mr MM and I hope we never end up in a living situation that doesn’t include people of all ages and types-watching the cycle o9f life is a wonderful thing!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfwGkplB_sY

My husband says that the worst thing about aging is that he can’t eat as much as he used to.

@veganmarcy So true about being prepared. It is like being drafted. When I was 22 and just married and husband and I had moved across the country after college to San Francisco, my brother in Berkeley was hit by a car. I had to quit my job and help care for him for a year (both his legs were broken pretty badly). I was the only family nearby and I had intense pressure to do the caretaking.

With my parents, I’ve kept open communication. If my mom needed more care and my siblings closer couldn’t provide it, she could move in with us or we could get her an apt. close by. We get along well enough that we could make it work. My sister would never help, she and my mom have a fractious relationship and she couldn’t handle the stress.

@Ms. M – I think it’s essentially the female draft. American men have gotten drafted in past wars, but women were always drafted for family emergencies or even non-emergency overall caretaking. It’s so assumed to be the norm that it doesn’t get the support it should, especially when people have to take leave, or leave their jobs entirely (I still haven’t found a new one), on top of women already making less $$ per dollar in the work world and getting hired and promoted less because they are assumed to be default caretakers for the young or the elderly. The system is so weighted, y’know?

And it’s not just when someone is in dire medical need, it’s also when they need some more help overall and so that means someone living nearby or with them to get that done. And yes, your sister = my brother, although I also have my own fractious history with my mother that we’ve tried to work on over the years. Difference being, I am more expected to check in on her whether we’re getting along or not, and my brother can limit that to some general-conversation basic phonecalls from far away and maybe a holiday visit. With no societal expectation that he do more. It’s not even expecting someone else to be more involved as a default alternative, it’s more that the caretaking situation being asked about regularly would at least acknowledge the work *itself* being done. Like how a lot of men middle-aged and older still expect if their parents moved in, their wife would be the one looking after her in-laws, even though she’s not related. It’s just assumed.

I grew up watching and listening to my mother worrying over her age and appearance. Wrinkles, sagging, graying, less energy, etc. She’s 52 now, and she’ll talk about how she wishes she were 5, 10, 15 years younger. That always brings me up short, because she was just as preoccupied with her aging at those points in her life as she is now.

I’m still in my earlier twenties, and I haven’t experienced much of aging, but my experiences with my mother make me not want to care about it. It’s not that I don’t notice any physical flaws or ailments (I started getting gray hairs at the age of seventeen, and if I hadn’t noticed them straight away, the relentless teenage teasing would have clued me in, and I’ve had problems with my knees and ankles since around the same time), but there’s a voice in the back of my head that chants, “Don’t worry. Later, you’re going to miss this age and these so-called ‘problems.’” That voice has helped me get over whatever aging issues I’ve had.

Changing the subject over to health care power of attorney: I don’t care what your age is, I highly recommend getting one. And more importantly, I highly recommend assigning someone who is not emotionally close to you. Working in the health care field, I have seen a number of cases where the POA was unable to carry out the patient’s wishes. It’s always difficult to have to make the decisions for a loved one, even if that loved one has already told you what they do and do not want done. When the time comes, the POA may find themselves pressured by other family wishes or overcome with their own emotions.

When it has come to helping provide day to day care of my parents (who are divorced and comes with it its own special problems because their relationship is fractuous), I have let my younger brothers and sisters step up to the plate. It helps that my parents are not in a situation where they are unable to take care of themselves on a day to day basis.

I looked after my younger brothers and sisters for much of my life (including financially when I left home), and I am cared out. I was “drafted” to care for them whilst my parents were together, and was listed as a legal guardian after the divorce for them as well.

So when it comes to issues of the care requirements of my parents, I find that I purposely do not engage when it comes to my parents care needs. If I did engage it would mean I would be dragged into the miasma of family politics with all attendant issues – so I stay clear.
I want my parents to be good health wise, and that’s about it.

As for aging, I have found that feminism has given me an enourmous freedom to explore who I am at different ages and periods in my life. Whilst I do have my issues with the patriarchy and how I get around in life, I have found that having a great group of friends who have similar ideas around the patriarchy and gendered norms is a great salve.

My feminism has helped me to realize that it would be a bad idea to become my 60-something-year-old, manipulative, alcoholic, Narcissistic/sociopathic, you-name-it-type-of-abusive, widowed father’s caretaker, and that it’s not going to happen. I am in my early thirties, and my husband and I moved to another country in part to be away from the toxic miasma that is what is left of my family of origin after my mother died.

Maybe because I am the oldest daughter (though I have a younger sister), or maybe because it’s my traditional family role as scapegoat/caretaker/shock absorber/black sheep, but my father told me that he expects me to take care of him when he’s older. I’ve even heard some noise from family friends to the effect of, “but how could you move so far away?? How will you TAKE CARE OF YOUR FATHER??”

Considering that his forging my signature on checks with my name for a bank account I never opened (that I accidentally saw at his house before he whisked them out of sight and denied their existence) is one of the more benign things he’s done, and that he feigns helplessness in order to get favors, including financial favors, and actually enjoyed our distress when he covertly limited our access to food when we visited him last, I don’t feel any responsibility towards his upkeep in any way. Do I really have to take care of someone who enjoys trying to starve me just for kicks? (no)

It’s not even enough that the burnout from the drugs and alcohol may turn his feigned helplessness real in the next few years. I would NEVER move closer to him to take care of him, or allow his hoarded filth to enter my house (it’s been hard enough trying to get away from it in the first place, and to understand that it’s not my responsibility, and that I couldn’t make it go away if I tried), or sink any more money or effort into a relationship where only one of us acts like a human and ever has.

I would CERTAINLY never quit my job to take care of him (incidentally, this is what my Borderline/Narcissist mother expected of me when she got cancer my first year out of uni; I was also supposed to move in and somehow pay rent to make up for all the first eighteen or so years that my existence constituted a drain on their finances. I didn’t do it.). Part of my resistance to her then and to him now was for pure survival reasons, and part of it was the feminist idea that maybe I’m more than my ability to sacrifice and caretake. Maybe I’m allowed to put my oxygen mask on FIRST (i.e. keep my job and make sure I can take care of myself, and not derail my survival/healing because of the women’s draft.) Maybe I don’t *have* to keep trying to put it first on someone else who keeps ripping it off and trying to take away mine, at all….

Anyway, feminism helped me reclaim my life in unexpected ways. Feminism taught me that even if you unknowingly spent the first part of your life in thrall to toxic people, you do NOT have to spend the rest of it in thrall to them, even if everyone tells you you do. People don’t necessarily get nicer or less abusive as they age.